Rich and rousing and adventure yarn as Ty Power's new starter turns out to be, the story of its production carries rival excitement. Ty and his bride, Lind Christian, spent an exotic continuation of their honeymoon in French Morocco while the move version of Thomas Costain's best seller was being shot in that picturesque locale. The newlyweds lived in native huts ort tents; Linda did the cooking and beat Ty in endless Canasta games. Once, the Powers, were marooned in a tiny, remote Arab town when the dry bed of a river was suddenly filled with a raging flood, as in our own western desert. Morocco, like Ty, does a bit of acting for THE BLACK ROSE. Very convincingly, it impersonates the wastelands of Mongolia.

As for the star, he plays a 13th Century gent named Walter of Gurnie, a Saxon in Norman-ruled England. If you've studied your history like a good student, you'll remember that the Normans (succeeding where Hitler later failed) crossed the English Channel and took over the join along about 1066. As we find England a couple of centuries later, there�s still plenty of feuding going on between the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons, who are treated as second-class citizens. Rightfully, Ty should be the owner of a proud castle--but he's a Saxon. Tired of being pushed around, he joins forces with Tristram Griffen (British star Jack Hawkins). When they've become rebels with prices on their handsome heads, the two boys sail off to cut themselves a slice from the fabled wealth of the Orient. That's where the fun really starts, and Morocco begins making like Mongolia.

Slant-eyed and ferociously mustachioed, Orson Welles plays a good-bad man in his lustiest style. He's the wily Mongol chieftain Bayan, leading his troops to the headquarters of his boss, the mighty Kubla Khan, emperor of all the East. Ty and his pal Jack, hitching a ride with Orson's caravan, find that there's an interesting bit of cargo along--a half English, half Saracen maiden named Maryam, the "Black Rose." In spite of that nick-name, Maryam is portrayed by deliciously blonde Cecile Aubrey, a petite Pariesienne who was only nineteen when she was chosen for this important role opposite Tyrone Power. She had already scored a hit in French movies, but she's small enough and young enough to make her masquerade as a boy believable. At least, it temporarily fooled Bobby Blake, as Mahmoud, a native lad who thinks he has the exclusive right to serve Ty and Jack, and resents his new "rival." Look more closely under the turban and flowing robes, and you'll find the same Bobby Blake who's famous as Little Beaver of the Westerns.

There's a full measure of intrigue, of plots and counter-plots and narrow escapes in this swashbuckling tale. And it's all mounted in the most spectacular frame of sets and scenery. Sequences in England were shot right on the spot, in authentic castles dating back to the Middle Ages. So Ty and Linda had a chance to add more mileage to their globe trotting honeymoon (later continued in the Philippines for AN AMERICAN GUERRILLA). Story, acting and background all add up to a magnificent piece of unabashedly romantic entertainment.

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